Editorial: Climate-change effects here will necessitate education and tough new policies

How do you rebuild a leaky ship while still on board? Carefully, but with all due speed.

That may be one way to look at the slow-motion crisis of climate change and all the upheaval it brings to an island state: beach erosion, intense storms, environmental alterations that threaten ecosystems.

It is not really moving all that slowly — the landscape is literally shifting under our feet — and policymakers will need to make some hard choices, implement some real fixes, to head off the worst of it.

The fact that Hawaii residents are surrounded by the Pacific and regularly witness the effect of sea-level rise and other repercussions of global warming has sharpened the official and popular perspective on the issue.

That made it easier for the city to persuade voters two years ago to support a charter amendment establishing the Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency. A Honolulu Climate Change Commission was established. There is also a Hawaii Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission, which held its first meeting last October.

These new agencies moved fast to lay out the official guidance, publishing a report on sea-level rise and an Oahu-specific set of recommendations, building on that framework. Mayor Kirk Caldwell in July issued a directive that each city office would follow this guidance and address how to mitigate the effects of climate change in each action.

The takeaway message: This climate-change business is real, and we’re going to be dealing with it. And it’s a good message, as far as it goes.

It’s already become part of the political rhetoric locally. State Rep. Sylvia Luke, who chairs the House Finance Committee, has raised the issue as a consideration for possibly rerouting the city’s controversial rail project inland. An informational briefing to air that concern has been proposed but not yet scheduled.

Additionally, the conversation on climate change is about to expand islandwide. A series of community meetings, outlining the problems ahead and possible remedies, is set to start Sept. 27, said Josh Stanbro, who heads the city’s climate change office.

That’s a necessary and wise move. By itself, of course, it’s not sufficient.

People need to understand climate change beyond the rhetorical level, how it has impact on their own lives. There needs to be what policymakers like to call “community buy-in.”

If there is going to be an aggressive policy shift that will complicate everything from clean-energy improvements to building plans on shoreline properties, people have to be clear on the reasons. Public education is essential.

But the most critical piece of the puzzle, its most contentious element, has to follow in short order: development of a 21st-century regulation of shoreline development on Oahu.

Erosion and accretion of beach sand is a natural process. Erection of seawalls, which was allowed routinely for decades along many shoreline properties, can affect public beaches. Landowners seeking to stop the erosion of their valuable beachfront properties apply for permits to build new barriers, or restore existing ones.

Following the minimum set in state law, the City and County of Honolulu and Hawaii County have adopted a 40-foot setback standard for construction within the shoreline area, but on Maui and Kauai, more stringent regulations were imposed — wisely.

The problems of erosion are particularly acute on Oahu, where there’s incursion along the roadbed for the coastal Kamehameha Highway. Invaluable real estate on the island similarly will be affected — Waikiki and the airport, to name two key districts. Such facts can no longer be ignored.

In a meeting last week with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser editorial board, Caldwell said pilot studies are underway in Waikiki to explore ways of adapting streets, and the underlying pipes and infrastructure, to flooding. That’s only a first step in an arduous search for ways of hardening the critical tourism destination against rising seas.

Perhaps even more difficult will be adopting a policy that settles how to handle requests of individual property owners islandwide. Will the city have to “just say no” where rebuilding of walls or structures is unwise? Will condemnation be necessary? Is salvaging the homes and buildings the better option in other cases?

The climate-change office has a full-time staff of seven people, in addition to assistance by seven more personnel supplied by the AmeriCorps civil service nonprofit.

Getting the message out about climate change principles — about the wisdom of the move to clean energy, about ways to reduce emissions that worsen global warming — are sure to be part of the mission.

But more importantly, this agency, in coordination with its state counterpart, must focus its resources on the critical immediate actions of the city administration. Honolulu will have to do the right thing in anticipating and adapting to climate change — even when it’s a tough call.